Latinos

Ruben Martinez ("Knock the Police Chief Off His Pedestal," Opinion, March 16) is out of touch with the people he purports to write about. For too long, armchair revolutionaries have used Latino immigrants as fodder for their political fantasies. Martinez does it again when he gives credence to gangster rapper Tupac Shakur's prophesy that Mexicans will join blacks in an insurrection. That notion is as preposterous as it is dangerous. A Field poll last year showed that Latinos were more optimistic about the future than was the rest of California.

Banc of California in Irvine is acquiring Popular Community Bank's 20 Southern California offices, part of a deal in which Popular Inc., Puerto Rico's largest bank, is shedding 41 mainland U.S. branches. The companies said Wednesday that Banc of California would pay $5.4 million for the local franchise, more than doubling its current network of 18 branches. The deal includes $1.1 billion in deposits and $1.1 billion in loans from eastern and southern Los Angeles County and northern Orange County.

When Boyle Heights shop owner Arturo Macias hears fellow Latinos use the Spanish word for "wetback," he doesn't necessarily take offense. Macias, who crossed illegally into the U.S. through Tijuana two decades ago, has heard the term " mojado " for much of his life and sees it less as an insult than a description of a common immigrant experience. "As a country of immigrants," he says in Spanish, "in one way or another, we're all mojados . " Macias is very offended, however, when he hears a non-Latino say "wetback.

Banc of California, a growing community bank in Irvine, is doubling its footprint in Southern California as it joins a new wave of smaller California banks pushing to expand into regional players in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the Great Recession. Banc of California said Wednesday that it agreed to buy 20 Popular Community Bank branches from struggling Popular Inc. in Puerto Rico, adding them to its 18 branches from Los Angeles to San Diego. The new branches would be in lightly banked Latino neighborhoods in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Abel Maldonado, the Republican iconoclast most recently famous for his brief stint as California's appointed lieutenant governor and his unsuccessful run for Congress last year, is making noises about running for governor in 2014 against Jerry Brown. Will putting up a Latino face for the state's top office reverse more than two decades of rejection for the GOP by the fast-growing Latino community? Can even a Latino Republican win Latino votes in California? Both history and the data tell us not to bet on it. I know and like Maldonado, the son of a migrant farmworker, and consider him a smart, decent, charming fellow.

Catholic and religiously unaffiliated Latinos overwhelmingly support reelecting President Obama, while only about half of evangelical Latinos do, according to a study by the Pew Hispanic Center released Thursday. Most Latino registered voters support Obama regardless of how often they attend church, but those who reported attending frequently were less likely to support his reelection. Those who never attend religious services favored the president the most, the study found. The survey, which also found growing support for gay marriage among Latinos, was largely consistent with national polls showing that the fast-growing group - now 24 million eligible voters - backs Obama over Mitt Romney by a 3-1 margin.

Although President Obama still enjoys higher job approval ratings from Latinos than he does from the public at large, a new Ipsos-Telemundo poll shows the president's support among Latinos continues to decline. A majority - 56% -- said in late November and early December that they approve of how the president is handling his job. By comparison, 86% of Latinos approved of Obama in April 2009, and 62% approved in June. According to an Ipsos analysis of the poll, the results “suggest that while President Obama's approval has been dropping since he took office, the disillusion among Latinos is more pronounced than among the general public.” The six-percentage-point drop since June is double the drop among the public at large, according to the poll.

Following a highly public spat last year with advocacy groups for Latino Americans, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., announced Thursday that its annual honors recognizing artists in various fields will feature two Latino names. Musician Carlos Santana and opera singer Martina Arroyo are among the five talents recognized in the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors. The other honorees are Shirley MacLaine, Billy Joel and jazz pianist Herbie Hancock. The annual ceremony is scheduled to take place Dec. 8 at the Kennedy Center and will be broadcast on CBS on Dec. 29. PHOTOS: Arts and culture in pictures by The Times In 2012, the Kennedy Center was criticized by two Latino advocacy groups for the lack of Latinos in the awards' 35-year history.

As the only Republican candidate for president to address Nevada's oldest Latino political organization Wednesday morning, Rep. Ron Paul got high marks for bravery. All were invited; only he showed up. He was cheered by members of Hispanics in Politics when he talked about bringing American troops home from "wars we shouldn't be involved in. " The audience -- dozens of politically active Latinos who gathered in an eastside community center -- applauded Paul the civil libertarian when he slammed drug laws that unfairly target minorities. They even cheered his defense of the gold standard.

When Arizona passed a law requiring immigrants to keep their papers with them at all times or risk arrest, we believed the state's hysteria was the unfortunate byproduct of the dysfunctional federal immigration policy. After all, who isn't fed up with illegal immigration? People may disagree about the solution to the problem, but no one denies that what the United States is doing now isn't working. But it is now clear that Arizona's problem isn't only immigration — legal or otherwise.

For the first time, the number of Latinos from California offered freshman admission to the University of California was larger than that for whites. Reflecting demographic trends, 28.8% of those admitted to at least one UC campus were Latino, compared with 26.8% white. At 36.2%, Asian Americans again made up the largest ethnic group among admitted students from California. Blacks from California were just 4.2%, a number that officials said was disturbingly low. "It remains a difficult issue for the university," said Stephen Handel, UC's associate vice president for undergraduate admissions.

WASHINGTON - Obama administration officials are considering allowing bond hearings for immigrants in prolonged detention, officials said, a shift that could slow the pace of deportations because immigration courts expedite cases of incarcerated immigrants. Several thousand immigrants could be released from jails across the country if judges are allowed to hear their cases and grant bond, advocates say. The proposal is one of several being floated as the White House scrambles to ease the concerns of Latino groups and other traditional allies that have turned on President Obama in recent weeks.

As Republicans seek to improve their standing among Latinos and women, fresh controversies in California could further damage the party with both groups. On Monday, a GOP gubernatorial candidate's inflammatory rhetoric likening illegal immigration to war came to light. The previous day, a conservative website on California politics was launched, featuring a raunchy photo-shopped image of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi - a depiction that prompted the most powerful Republican congressman from California to remove his column from the site.

Enrollment by Latinos in California's healthcare insurance exchange surged in the final month of sign-ups after an intensive push to reach that key population. "Our enrollment became more diverse in this last month, particularly among California's Latino population; our enrollment became younger," Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee said during a conference call with reporters Thursday after testifying with the heads of other state exchanges on Capitol Hill. With 1.2 million signed up for private plans, Lee said, "We're proud of that accomplishment.

African Americans are falling further behind their white and Latino counterparts when it comes to employment and income, according to a new report from the National Urban League released Thursday. The annual report , called the State of Black America, noted that 13.1% of African Americans were without jobs, compared with 6.5% of whites and 9.1% of Latinos. "Nationally, both African Americans and Latinos lost economic ground relative to whites," the report said. PHOTOS: World's most expensive cities The disparity can also be seen in incomes in neighborhoods around the U.S. Over half of African American and Latino households in the U.S. earn incomes that place them below middle class, compared with 35.5% of white households.

WASHINGTON - When prominent Latino activists meet with President Obama, there's one White House staff member present whom many of them have known since she was a child. Julie Chavez Rodriguez grew up handing out leaflets and knocking on doors with her grandfather, Cesar Chavez, whose campaign to organize farmworkers still inspires today's Latino leaders. As deputy director of the Office of Public Engagement, Rodriguez runs Obama's organizing efforts in support of immigration reform and supervises Latino outreach.

As Mitt Romney speaks to a Latino business group Monday in Los Angeles, a new poll demonstrated the major gap he faces that could harm his chances of winning Southwestern states where Latinos make up a significant voting bloc. The impreMedia-Latino Decisions weekly tracking poll showed 68% of Latinos were likely or leaning toward voting for President Obama, compared with 26% who said they expected to vote for Republican Romney in the Nov. 6 election. The survey of 300 registered voters has a relatively large margin of error at 5.6%, according to impreMedia, parent of Spanish-language news outlets including La Opinion in Los Angeles and El Diario La Prensa in New York.

California has launched a major campaign to educate Latinos about Obamacare before enrollment begins Oct. 1. More than half of Latinos have little or no understanding of the Affordable Care Act, according to a recent survey by Latino Decisions, an opinion polling organization. The percentage is higher among those who speak mostly Spanish, the survey found. "There are so many unanswered questions and so much confusion," said David Hayes-Bautista, who heads UCLA's Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture.

For Republicans roaring into the midterm election, the last few weeks have brought a wave of good news. President Obama's poll numbers continue to hover in the 40s. Democrats' hopes of holding the Senate look slimmer by the day. And the GOP heralded last week's win in Florida's special congressional election as evidence that their anti-Obamacare strategy is working. But some Republican strategists and donors fear that buoyant mood spells trouble for the party down the road - by masking the long-term problems that were so evident after the 2012 election.

Under fire for a shortage of Latino sign-ups for Obamacare, the state's health insurance exchange is looking for a booster shot from a well-established Southern California clinic chain. One recent weekday, Maria de Lourdes Martinez sat at a cubicle inside an AltaMed enrollment office in East Los Angeles browsing through the health plans available under the Affordable Care Act. Martinez, 49, of Rosemead, came to this strip-mall storefront across from a Starbucks because she'd brought her grandmother to an AltaMed clinic before.